The County and the Kaiser Blog

A continuing series of observations and accounts of
Genesee County, New York during World War I.

Looking back in local newspapers through the lens of hindsight, you can see it coming: a deadly wave, at first so far on the horizon it must have seemed barely worth noting, but each day coming closer to Genesee County.

Perhaps May’s tornado and June’s dark eclipse should’ve been taken as warning signs of the somber summer to come, given that they coincided with deadlier storms “over there,” and a sad series of county soldiers’ deaths.

The news that Genesee County received at the end of April 1918 still echoes with sadness today. The popular young doctor from Pavilion had been killed “over there” in France, leaving his new bride and a promising life behind.

On April 6, 1917, Genesee County awoke to a hushed, snow-covered landscape. Ordinarily, the word “peace” might have come to mind. But everyone in the county knew that this day, and many months to come, would bring the opposite.

In hindsight, perhaps they were hints of things soon to come, connections to the coming conflict between county and Kaiser hidden between the lines of the local news in Genesee County in the winter of late 1916 and early 1917.